The Future of Community Law

Abstract

When thinking of the nature of Community law, both as it is now and as it might develop, one has to remember three things. The first and most important is that the law of the European Communities is merely one emanation of a wider phenomenon: the developing law of Western Europe as a whole. Technological and social change has been so swift and radical that the existing legal structures are unable adequately to cope and fundamental reformulations have become necessary in practically every branch of law. This applies whether the country is rich or poor, north or south, Latin or Germanic, Mediterranean or Baltic, common law or code law. Willy nilly we are now watching the pragmatic emergence of a new European Law. On the one hand this is happening because basically similar solutions are emerging for similar problems in essentially similar societies. On the other hand, the development is being assisted by such European institutions as the Council of Europe, the Nordic Council, Benelux, the UN Economic Commission for Europe, and even such bodies as the OECD. The European Communities have a special place in this pattern because of the intensity of their law-making, the peculiarly imperative motivation of their legislative organs and because, although in one sense they constitute a quasi-state, they also represent an inter-state harmonising process of a particularly insistent character. This creates its own centripetal force and already we see peripheral countries not only seeking to join the Communities as full members but even, while remaining outside, wishing to align their own legal developments in some respects to the developments being worked out within the Communities.